Alex Tanford’s car collection began simply enough.
It was 20 years ago when the Indiana University law professor decided to look for 1/64 scale die-cast toy replicas of the cars he had owned throughout his life. A few dozen.
Two decades later, Tanford displays his cars in custom-made racks, 12 long rows in each. They are bolted to three walls in the basement of his Bloomington home.
His collection now includes 1,770 vehicles, plus or minus a few. Really. Most are Hot Wheels sized, although the 1/64 scale die-casts from Europe are slightly larger.
Tanford has another collection of about 40 1/43 scale die-cast vehicles on display in the Mauer Law School office. Graduates’ children and co-workers’ children spent hours riding them on the carpet while the adults went about their business. “Mine was the only office that had toys,” Tanford said.
The cars on display in his basement are parked side by side at an angle on shelves behind clear hard plastic panels. Others are in drawers marked with a year, waiting to be unpacked to find a place among the others.
Cars are organized by year, starting with 1948, and parked alphabetically within each year. Tanford created a multi-page master list referencing the vehicles in his collection.
For example, if you want to see all the Cadillacs, there is a list of them. A station wagon? Trucks? Convertibles? He knows how many there are and what year each one is from. No duplicates.
Tanford also knows the cars he doesn’t own, cars he’s owned full-size but can’t find in 1/64 scale replicas. He’s pretty sure no one made the tiny toy version of the Nash Ambassador; his parents owned a 1950 model, the first car he ever drove.
When he was 16, Tanford learned to drive in a 1963 Ford Fairlane station wagon with a three-speed stick. “I don’t have one either,” he said.
Tanford would also love to find a 1/64 scale version of the Mazda 626 from the late 1980s. He drove a 1989 model that he and his wife traded in overnight for a Ford Windstar van when they realized their great car wasn’t big enough for a family.
“We went to load up two kids, a crib and all our stuff for Christmas vacation in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to see the home family that year when we realized there was no way it would all fit in the car,” he recalls.
They postponed the trip for a day and went straight to the Chrylser dealership in Bloomington to buy a Dodge Caravan, a vehicle with plenty of room for kids. When no one served them, they went to the Ford dealership and purchased a new Windstar minivan there.
Yes, he has a Ford Windstar in his collection. This is in the 1/43 scale group in his university cabinet.
His favorite toy car? Tanford doesn’t hesitate when asked and walks over to the shelf where the 1966 models are parked. He removes a light black 1966 Volvo PV544 sedan. “It’s the only one in the collection that isn’t die-cast,” he said. .
I looked at the shiny plastic bauble that was attached to a key ring. That it’s not metal doesn’t matter.
Because sometimes collectors come across something meant just for them.
“I was in a toy shop in Whitby, in the northeast corner of England, when I found it,” Tanford recalls.
I wonder what the chances are of accidentally finding a 1/64 scale model of an unknown Volvo Tanford owned in 1970?
The photos of the diecast cars presented here are not perfectly focused.
There wasn’t much light and they’re small, so getting detail meant getting in close and blurring the sides. Let’s call it artistic photography and leave it at that.
Speaking of pictures, I took some crystal clear focus shots of a full size 1967 Ford Mustang convertible that seats four that was parked in Tanford’s driveway when I got there. I will write about it next time.
Until then, I wish you all a merry holiday. Thanks for reading. My Favorite Ride will continue into 2023 because I’m pretty sure I won’t run out of car stories.
Do you have a car or truck story? Contact My Favorite Ride reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.